NEW DELHI: Ather Energy Ltd became the first electric two-wheeler company in India to report a quarterly profit after a rapid rise in sales, increasing average sales price and better cost savings.
Bengaluru-based recorded a profit after tax of ₹1.26 crore during the July to September quarter as against a loss of ₹154 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue surged 63% to ₹1,526 crore.
Sales rose 42% to 93,211 units, with the Tarun Mehta-led company facing a surge in orders and ramping up average monthly supplies to 33,000 units from 28,000 in the preceding quarter. The company, founded 13 years ago, is turning its focus to expanding capacity, increasing its network and scaling up its latest model Konarc in a bid to double down on growth in the market.
The sales ramp-up has established Ather as the third-largest electric scooter manufacturer, and, together with its first profit, has put it ahead of crosstown rival Ola Electric, which is plagued by stagnant sales and continued losses. Ather’s larger rivals by market share are legacy manufacturers and Bajaj Auto.
Mehta, co-founder and chief executive officer at Ather, told analysts on an earnings call on Monday that Ather is not out of the woods even after turning net profitable for the first time.
“PAT (profit after tax) is not the first thing to focus on. The real thing to focus on is top line and improving volumes will itself take care of a lot of things,” Mehta said. “If that and if all the capacity work that we’re putting in bears fruit well over the next few months, then I believe that PAT will take care of itself,” Mehta said.
The net profit came after Ather became the first new-age electric two-wheeler company to report a breakeven on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda). Its Ebitda margin came in at 0.8% in the June quarter, an over 16-percentage-point improvement from -15.7% a year ago. In the September quarter, Ather’s Ebitda margin was 4.9% from -9.6% a year earlier, a growth of 14 percentage points despite commodity price increases.
The company’s shares surged 14.1% to ₹1,575 at the close on the National Stock Exchange on Monday after the results were announced during market hours. The increased 0.44%. The breakeven on overall profitability came almost after a year and a half since Ather went public in May 2025, with its shares having delivered a 5.25-fold increase.
One reason Mehta is cautious is the rise in prices of aluminium, copper, plastics and memory chips, which have been worse than expected, with a limited ability to pass them on to consumers owing to the threat of affordability being affected.
“I would really like to hope that over the next calendar, some of these commodities will certainly cool down. Otherwise, I think it’ll be quite a monumental thing for the automotive industry to have seen such elevated commodities for such a long time,” Mehta said.
The improvement in margins came on the back of a higher average selling price for its vehicles. As per the data shared by the company in its investor presentation, the average selling price of its models increased from ₹149,000 in the July to September 2025 quarter to ₹164,000 in the July to September 2026 quarter.
Mehta has ruled out further price hikes to protect demand for Ather’s models.
In a bid to capture demand growth and double down in the country, the board of Ather approved an expansion in annual production capacity from 420,000 units to 495,000 units annually at its Hosur plant in Tamil Nadu near Bengaluru. It is constructing a new plant in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar in Maharashtra with an annual capacity of 500,000, which will now be increased to 650,000.
The expansion will take Ather’s annual capacity to more than 1 million units for its product lineup of three electric scooters: the 450 range, the Rizta and the Konarc, which was launched in August. The entire capacity will be live by the second quarter of next financial year.
